Canadians were once church-goers. During the post-war boom of the 1950s, Canadian churches were vibrant institutions, with attendance rates even higher than in the United States, but the following decade witnessed emptying pews. What happened? In Leaving Christianity Brian Clarke and Stuart Macdonald quantitatively map the nature and extent of Canadians’ disengagement with organized religion and assess the implications for Canadian society and its religious institutions. Drawing on a wide array of national and denominational statistics, they illustrate how the exodus that began with disaffected baby boomers and their parents has become so widespread that religiously unaffiliated Canadians are now the new majority. While the old mainstream Protestant churches have been the hardest hit, the Roman Catholic Church has also experienced a significant decline in numbers, especially in Quebec. Canada’s civil society has historically depended on church members for support, and a massive drift away from churches has profound implications for its future. Leaving Christianity documents the true extent of the decline, the timing of it, and the reasons for this major cultural shift.

The 1st volume (1896) includes important publications of 1895.

Have we lost our past, and, in turn, ourselves? Who is slamming shut our history books -- and why? In an indictment that points damning fingers at our education system, the media and our government's preoccupation with multiculturalism to the exclusion of English Canadian culture, historian J.L. Granatstein offers astonishing evidence of our lack of historical knowledge. He shows not only how "dumbing down" in our education system is contributing to the death of Canadian history, but how a multi-disciplinary social studies approach puts more nails in the coffin. He explains how some teachers think studying the Second World War glorifies violence and may worsen French-English conflicts if conscription is mentioned, And he tells how the pride Canadians should feel over their past has been brushed aside by efforts to create a history that suits the misguided ideas of successive ministers of Canadian heritage and multiculturalism. Finally, he shows that there is hope, and there are steps we must take if we are to renew our past -- and ensure our future. With his intelligent and outspoken "blow the dust off the history books" approach to his subject, J.L. Granatstein has produced a brilliantly argued book that addresses a subject too important to ignore. Published to coincide with the anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge (April 9, 1917), and appearing at a time when our education system is coming under ever sharper attack Who Killed Canadian History? is a timely and provocative release. A recent test on Canada given to 100 first-year students at an Ontario university revealed the following statistics: -- 61% did not know that Sir John A. Macdonald was our first English-speaking prime minister -- 55% did not know that Canada was founded in 1867 -- 95% did not know that 1837 was the date of the Rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada -- 92% did not know the year of the first Quebec referendum

This edited collection offers a broad reinterpretation of the origins of Canada. Drawing on cutting-edge research in a number of fields, Violence, Order, and Unrest explores the development of British North America from the mid-eighteenth century through the aftermath of Confederation. The chapters cover an ambitious range of topics, from Indigenous culture to municipal politics, public executions to runaway slave advertisements. Cumulatively, this book examines the diversity of Indigenous and colonial experiences across northern North America and provides fresh perspectives on the crucial roles of violence and unrest in attempts to establish British authority in Indigenous territories. In the aftermath of Canada 150, Violence, Order, and Unrest offers a timely contribution to current debates over the nature of Canadian culture and history, demonstrating that we cannot understand Canada today without considering its origins as a colonial project.

Masterful, ambitious, and groundbreaking, this is a major new history of our country by one of our most respected thinkers and historians -- a book every Canadian should own. From the acclaimed biographer and historian Conrad Black comes the definitive history of Canada -- a revealing, groundbreaking account of the people and events that shaped a nation. Spanning 874 to 2014, and beginning from Canada's first inhabitants and the early explorers, this masterful history challenges our perception of our history and Canada's role in the world. From Champlain to Carleton, Baldwin and Lafontaine, to MacDonald, Laurier, and King, Canada's role in peace and war, to Quebec's quest for autonomy, Black takes on sweeping themes and vividly recounts the story of Canada's development from colony to dominion to country. Black persuasively reveals that while many would argue that Canada was perhaps never predestined for greatness, the opposite is in fact true: the emergence of a magnificent country, against all odds, was a remarkable achievement. Brilliantly conceived, this major new reexamination of our country's history is a riveting tour de force by one of the best writers writing today.

Everyone who ever set pen to paper on the subject of Grace seems to have been intensely subjective. In In Search of Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood describes her own search for the facts, what she found out, what eluded her grasp and how this process shaped her novel.